To Mohammed the Mountain
by Ashura
Summary: (3x4) Trowa sets out to find himself, but what he finds isn't quite what he expected.


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To Mohammed the Mountain

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DISCLAIMER: Characters belong to the people who own them. Lyrics to _Strange Fire_ belong the Indigo Girls. Inspired in part by Joyce Johnson's _Door Wide Open_. (Yup, it's me, more Beat stuff.)

WARNINGS: Yaoi, Lime 

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It seemed strange, that it had been so long. How had I even survived the past two years without him seemed a mystery to me--at one time, I wouldn't have believed it possible. Once I thought I had killed him, and after he reappeared in my life I clung to him, protective, afraid to let him out of my sight for fear he would be torn from me again. I told him I loved him, and his soulful eyes opened--I don't mean opened in the physical sense, but the metaphorical one, as if a light came on inside his heart and let me see the depth of the pain and despair bottled inside him. I wanted desperately to heal him, I would have given anything to be the one who rebuilt the shattered fragments of his stunted heart. 

And even though he, too, wanted it, I knew in the hollow of my heart even then that the road was never so easy. We fumbled in the dark with one another's bodies like the children we almost were, seizing life with stolen kisses, justifying hell with awkward lovemaking in hushed tones on berths too narrow for us, falling asleep sated, exhausted, in a tangle of limbs and murmured exultations of promised forevers.

And then eternity was over, and we joined sad eyes in a shadowed hallway. I remember vividly how his fingers brushed my cheek, how stoically he tried to hide the gleam of silver in his eyes, the tremour in his soft voice. "I'm sorry, Cat."

And I remember that I was as stoic and strong as he, refusing to give release to the burning behind my eyes as I took his hand and pressed it to my lips. "Do you want me to wait for you?" I had asked, the way children do, thinking that the promise is as good as the deed.

I thought, for a heartbeat, he was going to say yes. He nibbled at his lip, his downcast eyes fixed on our joined hands. "I--I can't ask you that. I'll love you forever, Cat, but for me to be...ready...it could take a lifetime."

We were fifteen years old, child crusaders with no war left to fight, and in the true nature of children, our impulsive love had become our world. It was easy, when we were warriors, to claim the rare chance to reaffirm in each other that we were still alive. In peacetime, love was harder to hold onto. And my beautiful, broken Trowa had accepted a new mission, as overwhelming in consequence as any Oz base we'd ever destroyed. 

He was on a quest to discover himself. 

For two years I heard little from him--just enough to reassure me that he was all right. He knew I'd worry otherwise, no matter what happened--or never happened--between us. He was discovering the Earth. He sent me postcards from Tangiers and the mountains of Tibet, the ruins of South America and the Canadian snowfields. Always careful in his wording, he never did any more than tell me where he was--never alluded to what we'd once shared, never said anything that might have led me on, or prevented me from seeking love elsewhere. 

Until now--a message, written on hotel stationery in a careful hand, as if the words had been pondered far longer than their simple nature intimated. //_Cat--I'd really like to see you. Can we talk?_//. 

How strange it was to hear his soft voice on the other end of the line when we made arrangements to meet, to see again the deep green eyes that never would quite meet my gaze. How sad I was to notice the pain still there, marring his face when I had hoped to see peace. All my intentions to be casual with him crumbled into dust, and as I clicked off the phone I found myself whispering "I love you..." to the darkened screen. 

We never had use for such games, anyway. And if there was even a chance he still needed me, I wanted to help him.

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~I come to you with strange fire, I make an offering of love  
The incense of my soil is burned by the fire in my blood  
I come with a softer answer to the questions that lie in your path   
I want to harbour you from the anger, find a refuge from the wrath~

I watched him, through the field glasses, for far longer than he would be able to see me--he hadn't wanted me to pick him up, so I was waiting, and watching him cross the sand on foot like a Bedouin, his hands gripping a tall staff that he paused sometimes to rest on. Piece by frazzled piece my patience frayed, til I wanted to run out to him, throw my arms around him and carry him home, but with discipline I was startled to learn I possessed, I waited. 

An eternity later he reached my gate, gliding to my door with the feral grace of a wild animal that wasn't quite sure whether it should accept a handout. I couldn't wait anymore--I opened the door before he had a chance to knock. We stood there, staring at each other in awkward hesitation and a growing, uncomfortable silence.

Finally, he was the one to break it. "Hullo, Cat."

My stomach did a triple flip and landed somewhere in the vicinity of my chest just to hear him call me that again, in that soft voice that was sultry without meaning to be, raising the hairs on the back of my neck and flushing my face. "Trowa. Come in." He slipped past me, into the house, his face registering minute surprise at the sparcity of it. 

"Wow...it's not quite the place I'd imagined you lived, somehow," he admitted, when he saw me watching. 

I shrugged. "It's big enough for me. I have it all to myself. The privacy's worth more than a castle to me." I'd found I preferred living in the desert, surrounded by the Maguanacs and their families, even to the company of my own family back on L4. There was no real reason I had to stay there and run things--Adiveh had been doing it for years, she was completely capable, and had more interest in it than I did. 

Trowa's lips quirked in what was almost a smile. "That...fits you," he said, before he fell silent again, his hands clasped in front of him. "You live here alone, then?" The apprehension in his voice warmed me--was he worried? Was he hoping? Was I just reading too much into this?

I nodded. "Just me. Can I get you something? I picked up some coffee for you."

Again, that almost-smile. "You remembered. Yes. Thank you." We moved that way for a while, cautiously feeling out the situation, assessing each other's changes. He'd grown in the last two years--not as much as I had, but then he didn't have as far to go. We were almost the same height now. His hair was still the same smooth, silky dark brown, falling into his face to cover one deep emerald eye. His skin was rougher, his body a little more muscular, his posture less confident, but every movement was still an exercise in poetry. I could have watched him for hours. 

But I didn't. I pressed him, instead, past the intricacies of renewed acquaintance. I didn't want to dance around teapots and miniature sandwiches forever. I wanted him back, in whatever capacity he could give me--I'd shared my every dream with him, once, I'd held him while he trembled with the pressures of war and cried myself to sleep in his arms. So I cut through our ritualistic patterns to ask him--"Trowa? What was it you wanted to talk about?"

Trowa let out a long sigh, sinking off the chair to curl around his knees on the floor. "I'd feel really stupid telling this to anybody but you," he admitted as preamble, and I joined him on the floor. "But if anybody's going to understand me, it'd be you. I'm just--I'm so lost, Cat." His gaze fell, again, settling on the hands that he twisted around each other in his lap. "I've spent the last two years searching for something to make me feel whole, and I haven't found it. I've come close--there were moments when I thought, if I could just stretch a little further, see a little clearer, that I'd be able to touch God, or whatever it is that makes the universe work like it does. But then the moment would pass, and I was empty again, just a pathetic lonely little boy. What I was doing--it was as effective as putting a note into a bottle and launching it into space for someone to find. The answers might be out there, but somehow I'm missing them." He looked up at me, his eyes caught my face as if he were measuring me. "I don't know what I'm doing here, really. I'm not asking you for anything. It's just...every time I had one of those almost-moments, Cat, I was thinking about you. I'm so lonely...it took me forever to send you that letter. I didn't want to upset you. But I--I wanted to see you."

The raw pain in his voice threatened to make me cry--I've always been prone to it, and while it doesn't always help in the big bad world to have leaky blue eyes, here with Trowa I couldn't have cared less. I covered his hands with mine, capturing his eyes so I could look into them. "Stay with me," I said softly. "You don't have to be lonely." He looked about to speak, so I hurried on before he could. "Only if you want to," I said firmly, softly. "I won't ask anything of you, you don't have to stay a minute longer than it feels right. But I want--" I faltered then, I had no idea how to explain to him what I wanted, how I would give the world to help him, without giving whatever possible relationship we built a tilt of dependency that neither of us would want. So I didn't. I told him what else I felt, instead.

"I still love you, Trowa," I finished. "I don't expect anything from you, and I'd never push you. But anything you need, I'll try to be."

He stared at me for a moment in stunned disbelief, then his head dropped forward, hiding his face in his knees. "Cat--" he whispered, his voice muffled, and then his shoulders began to shake, his breath heaving with the force of the ragged sobs that ripped themselves from his lips and bit off his breath. 

There are different kinds of crying. There's happy crying, and sad crying, and frustrated crying. Then there's the sort of raw, desperate tears that burst their way forth when all the despair inside can't be held back anymore, and something in the soul finally breaks. I wrapped my arms around Trowa and pulled him against me, and he buried his face in my shirt, remaining hidden there until his eyes were red and sore, and he was too raw and empty inside to cry anymore. 

"I missed you." The words were almost lost in the whimper, the exhalation of warm breath on my dampened shirt, but I heard them, and I held onto him tighter. "God, Cat, I missed you...." 

He lifted his face from my chest, looked up at me. His cheeks were flushed and streaked with the trails of his tears, his eyes were red and swollen, his expression so profoundly weary it seemed impossible that he could hold his head up. He was unfathomably beautiful. "I missed you, too," I told him honestly. I bent my face to his, touching my lips to his cheek, gently kissing the path of his tears.

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~This is a message of love,   
love that moves from the inside out,   
love that never grows tired  
I come to you with strange fire~

I intended it to be innocent, comforting. I'd meant what I said, that I wouldn't push him, or expect anything from him that he might not be willing to give. Then my lips touched his salty skin, and I breathed in the scent of sandalwood that clung to him, the fragrance of his hair. I felt him stiffen and abruptly relax again in my arms, his fingers tighten in the folds of my shirt, and then my lips were seeking his with a hunger I hadn't expected. Our mouths met, and stars exploded all through me. Trowa's arms slid up around my neck, so his body was more aligned with mine, our chests pressed together, our bodies in an awkward tangle on the floor. I could feel his heart pounding against my chest, and mine aching with desire and deep, shared pain; I felt my body respond to his proximity and heard him moan softly into my lips. I slid my hands under his shirt, stroked his chest, and he arched into me, his fingers tangling in my hair as he held our mouths desperately together. We fumbled with our clothes, with the awkwardness of changed bodies and the swarm of memories that flooded our senses as surely as the fire coursing through our blood. Naked, breathless, our skin inflamed by every touch, I lay back and pulled him above me, searing his soul with kisses that would not be held back. He merged our bodies with a sound like a sob, erratic thrusts fueled by a need deeper than lust, his fingers clenching tight enough to leave bruises on my shoulders. He emptied seed and soul into my body, gasping my name, its syllables like silk against my skin, my own body responding fervently, transported, exalting in the fevered touch of the one I so desperately loved. He collapsed against me, trembling, and I wrapped my arms around him and kissed his hair.

"I love you, Cat," he whispered, a catch in his tight voice. "I don't deserve you, but I do love you, God, I'll love you forever."

"I love you, too, Trowa," I promised softly. "I always have." 

We lay there, entwined, til we could no longer ignore the fact that the floor is not a comfortable place to be, and we picked ourselves up. I led him to my bed, and curled around him when he stretched out, exhausted, his eyes closing almost as soon as he touched the pillow. He clasped my hand, holding it against his chest, and even after his breathing settled into a deep, sometimes fitful sleep, he didn't let it go.

And I lay there, settled against him, awake for a long time.

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~Mercenaries of the shrine, who are you to speak for god?   
with haughty eyes and lying tongues and hands that shed innocent blood  
who delivered you the power to interpret Calvary?   
You gamble away our freedom to gain your own authority~

His body was warm and solid in my arms, and even in his sleep I let my hands roam over him. There were new scars that he hadn't had before, thin lines of red and white that streaked his shoulders, faded against the tanned and windblown skin. I brushed a kiss against one I _did_ know, a small circular burn that had marked his neck for longer than I'd known him. I could still feel the protective anger that had risen within me when he'd explained it to me, in faltering words and shameful tones in the late-night sanctuary of our bed. It had been that night when I had realised the true extent of his fragility, and when I knew that I would do anything for him.

But I was one young man, and even the idealist in me wondered how much I could really do to heal him. How strong is even love against the abuse of years, of a child who knows nothing else? And how whole, really, was I, that I thought I could play saviour to someone else?

Quietly he moaned, trapped in his dreams, and tightened his grip on my hand. "I love you," I whispered in his sleeping ear, and his breathing calmed, if only a little.

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~Find another state of mind, grab hold,   
strange fire burns with the motion of love~

I woke to find him watching me, stretched languid and graceful and half-tangled in the sheets, propped up on one elbow, his eyes dark with wonder as if he'd been afraid, when he woke up, that I would have disappeared. 

"Good morning," I mumbled sleepily. I woke up a good deal more slowly than I used to. A smile quirked at the corners of his mouth and if only for a moment, lit a sparkle in his eye. 

"It's not morning, Cat," he told me. "Not yet at any rate."

I shrugged, adjusting my pillow. "We went to bed early."

He let out a little laugh, one of the most beautiful sounds in the world. "We did. And I'm still adjusting to the time zone, so I have an excuse."

"And you were my excuse," I answered, brushing my fingers down his chest. I couldn't get enough of touching him, as if my body was determined to make up for two years of lost time. He shivered, his eyes flickering briefly closed in a rush of want, stilled by an exercise of willpower so strong it was visible. 

"Can we talk?" he asked, tentative.

I nodded. "Of course." 

He lay down again, re-settling himself in the bed, gazing upward at a ceiling he didn't really see. A long sigh prefaced any words, and I lay silent next to him as he gathered whatever words he was trying to say.

"I needed that," he began finally. "I can't tell you how much....And I need you. I see that now, Cat. You're the only one that makes me feel alive. You always have been." He paused, and only the harshness of a few ragged breaths gave testament to his failing control. "I don't know how to be a whole person, and that scares me to death. I think the only way I'll ever figure myself out is with your help, but I'm terrified of losing myself in you."

"Don't be." I rolled onto my side so I could look down at him, meet his eyes. "Trowa...." I struggled for explanation, for words that could give coherency to my scattered thoughts. "If the prophet searches everywhere for truth, but keeps returning to the mountain, he doesn't become a part of it. It only anchors him, and gives him sanctuary when he needs it."

Trowa smiled, a little sadly. "Are you the mountain, then, Cat?"

I bent to kiss him, gently. "I can be, Trowa. I can be as strong as you need me to be. I'll anchor you in my heart, and give you a place to hide when you're tired of searching for truth. It's all right if you blow away again--I'll still be here, and you can always come back. As often as you need."

Disbelief washed over his face, and he reached up to kiss me roughly. "I don't deserve you," he said again, and I lay a finger across his lips to silence the thought. He kissed it and sighed, "But I don't, and you deserve so much better. Why would you do it, Cat? Why waste the time and effort and love on me, when I may never be able to settle down with you?"

"Because you're the one I love," I told him. At last, a question with an easy answer. "And I'd rather have you--whatever you think you can spare me--than all the rest of the world."

He pulled me down, clutching me against him. "You've got all of me, Cat," he promised, his voice a little less than a whisper. "I'm not much, and I'm broken, and I haven't got myself all figured out yet, but I'm all yours."

"Trowa...." I almost moaned, and kissed him hard.

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~When you learn to love yourself, you will dissolve all the stones that are cast  
you will learn to burn the icing sky and to melt the waxen mask  
yes, to have the gift of true release, this is a peace that will take you higher  
I come to you with my offering, I bring you strange fire~

The letter was postmarked from Georgia--the American state, not the Balkan country--and scribbled hastily on hotel stationery, stained with a ring from a coffee mug. Trowa seldom sent postcards anymore, there wasn't enough room on them for the long letters he'd finally begun to write. Gone, too, was the neutral language that would let me know only that he was alive and well. His missives were filled with minutia, stream-of-consciousness explorations into his every unexplained thought, and always closed with the affirmation, "I still love you," as if it hadn't been made clear enough by the longing tone of his words. He was a brilliant writer--every incident he described I felt as though I'd witnessed, as if I'd been a secret stowaway inside his heart through all his journeys. 

This letter was different, if only in closing. He told me, first, about the people he'd met and the stories they'd told him--he was a great collector of stories, people and their lives fascinated him. I unfolded the worn paper and read it through again.

//_I think I understand now, Cat_,// he finished. //_I think maybe that the answers I was looking for aren't really out there after all, that maybe that's part of the point, that all of life is a voyage of discovery, and if I wait til I get the universe figured out before I let myself start living that I'll have missed everything important. I've been living all along, without giving it the respect I should have. I don't know if this is making any sense, or if you'll agree with me, but finally something feels right--not like I've made any great breakthrough, but like maybe I shouldn't have been expecting one. Anyway, the point of all this, Cat, is that I'm finally ready. I want to come home. And I love you._//

He never stayed in one place long, and I'd only been able to leave him a short message with the desk staff of the cheap southern motel he was staying in: //_Door wide open._// It was enough--he knew what I really meant, how happy and excited and relieved I was that he was coming back to stay, how I missed him every morning when I woke up alone, and every night when I curled up around my pillow. 

And this time, when I waited pensively for him to arrive at my--at _our_--door, it didn't seem nearly as long. The prophet was coming to the mountain to stay....

Trowa was coming home to me.

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~This is a message of love,   
love that moves from the inside out,   
love that never grows tired  
I come to you with strange fire~


End file.
